That's Why
by SafireGriffon
Summary: Why do Seifer and Squall always have to fight? Very slight shonenai. Rated just to be safe for Seifer's language. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VIII and all characters and related insignia belong to Square, not to me.

A/N: WARNING. This fic includes shonen-ai elements (slight). If this is not your cup of tea, I suggest you read something else. If you are going to flame, do be kind enough to do so anonymously, so I can delete your review. ;)Constructive criticism, however is welcome (I have such a hard time with Seifer's character, but he won't leave my brain alone).

**That's Why**

We had to be rivals. With only two gunblade specialists in all Balamb Garden, we had to be. Not just in our year; in the entire Garden. There's a reason no one learns how to use it; it's a pain in the ass weapon. I mean, there's a trigger, like a gun, but there's no bullets in it. All it does is add a punch to the blade. An almost unpredictable one, so you have to have a lot of upper-body strength to keep the blade from jumping too much in either direction, if you're going to use it properly. People think it's just a kind of sword; it's not. It's a gunblade.

And there are only two jackasses in all of Garden who bothered to learn how to use the damn thing. One would be me, who only picked it up because (a) it was supposed to be impossible to learn, and no one told me what I couldn't do, and (b) I would be the only one to pick it up, and so would not be stuck training with some pansy-ass. The only problem was that someone else did pick it up. Just one other person.

I won't waste time describing him. Everyone knows who he is by now. Hell, most people knew who he was then. The quiet kid. The weirdo. The kid who never smiles. The kid who always stares. And because that's who he was, he clearly, quietly, emotionlessly stated his weapon choice.

He'd said it quietly, but everyone heard him. His voice is weird like that. It's not like everyone's listening to him—he hardly ever talks, so when he does, it kind of surprises people—but his voice has just the right pitch or something, because it carries over everyone else. It's like nature conformed itself to him, or like he _made_ it conform to him. It's _weird_.

Everyone heard him say gunblade, but I don't think any of them really listened. Maybe they just thought gunblades were a fad this year, or something. But I heard what else he said, underneath the calmly stated word. _I challenge you._ And that's why we had to be rivals.

I sent him a look. _Don't challenge me, you won't win_. But he won the second he looked back. Because his eyes said so. They didn't say _Bring it on_, they didn't say _Yeah right_, they didn't say _I'm not looking for a fight_, or _Don't hurt me_. They said _Why do you bother with this foolishness?_

That's why I always have to fight him, because he won't fight. He didn't even call me a fool, because that would have been a challenge. He just called me a child. A child who didn't know he was being foolish. And damn it I wasn't going to be treated like some dumb kid.

For a while, they trained us with the sword kids, since they didn't want us to use the triggers yet. I remember the first time they put us in against each other.

_Tweeeeeeeeeeeeet_! "Okay, the two of you stop!"

Clang. Swipe. Dodge.

_Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeet_! "Gunblades! Stop!"

Clash! I pushed against his gunblade with my own, as hard as I could. His feet slid a little. And I finally saw it. Something sparked in there, something I recognized. Challenge. _You can't take me down._

It's an extra burst of adrenaline, it's a drug, that brings you on the high that crack addicts dream of. I pushed harder, and his feet kept sliding, making little piles of dust on either side of his shoes, the same dust that was clinging to the sweat on my face. But the look in his eyes didn't change. Even when he fell backwards, he was still holding the blade to block my strike, and his eyes still said he was not beaten. He would never be beaten. It was a joke to try.

_Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet_! "Seifer Almasy!" Someone dragged me off and away from him, and it was like being dunked in ice water.

"What did you think you were doing?" A Garden Administrator demanded, "You were instructed to stop!"

I was trying to focus at least a little on what they were telling me, but I just kept staring at him, still half-lying in the dust, staring at me with that same look. It was the first time I'd ever seen him look alive at all. When I saw him in class the next day, it was gone. Whenever I tried to catch his eye, to send him the challenge, he just looked at me blankly, as though I didn't exist. _Why do you bother with this foolishness? _So I've been chasing that spark ever since. I tried everything, but he didn't even bother to answer my taunts, he ignored pranks, he wouldn't let anything drive him to action. Unless we were fighting. That's the only time I saw the spark. So I fought him whenever possible.

That's why I called him up there, that day. I know he was supposed to be going to the Fire Cavern, but I needed to see the spark. He'd been studying so hard the last week—he didn't want anyone to ever know that he cared, but he did—that I'd hardly even seen him, much less had time to really look. And I had to see it. Even if he was angry at me.

Would it kill him—clang—to look at me differently? He was always like this. Smash. He was dead or he was—slide—angry. He could never just look at me and see me. I was an annoyance at best—swipe—and an obstacle at worst. I was never—guard—me. And that made. Me. So. Mad.

So that's why when he came at me with the fire spell, I blocked with one of my own. Of course mine was stronger—I had GFs equipped. With the handy-dandy Magic Junction. It stunned him, knocked him backward. His eyes rolled crazily, trying to get his bearings. I froze for a second. He looked . . .odd. His eyes weren't angry, it was true, and they weren't quite empty. Confused. It was something different, but it wasn't me. He still didn't see me. He just saw the strange thing that had caused this undesirable turn of events—him on the ground without his weapon. Look at _me_, dammit!

My arm was up and coming down before I even realized what I was doing. I saw where it was going, and my heart stopped. I pulled the blade back in panic, but not far enough; it still nicked his face. I just stood there, frozen. I did this. _I_ did this. I hurt him. I could have killed him. How did I . . .? The blood was so red. So red. I'd seen dead people before. I'd killed people before. But not him, never him, I didn't want him to bleed . . .did I?

That's why I didn't block when his strike answered mine. I let his weapon slice right across my face, because all I could do was stare at that blood running down his face, right between his eyes.

Eyes that burned.

We fought again in Deling, right on a parade-float if you can believe it. For the first time, I didn't have to awaken that spark in him. It was already there, looking for me. Why? Squall never stayed angry long. Or maybe he did, but he never let it show long. The point was, things always went back down to zero pretty quickly. He might be fuming, but we'd never know, because the outside was always zero degrees. This time, he struck me down. The fire faded after that. I saw his face rearrange itself back to almost-calm to fight Edea. Then I saw who was with him. Rinoa. He hardly gave her a glance when she came up beside him, but I saw the glance. Anyone else probably wouldn't have seen it, but for someone who'd been studying Squall's eyes for years, it was like a neon sign went off.

_Are you alright? Are you safe? Stay close. I'll take care of you._

And Hyne if that didn't hurt. I pretended to be passed out for a while, 'cause last time I checked, knights aren't allowed to cry. And that _hurt_. I'd been there for years, _years_, and he'd never looked at me that way. The way he looked at her. How long could he have known her? She'd said last summer that she'd never met a SeeD before, did they really work for little factions like hers, did I really think they'd help. And then at the party . . .the party. Had they met at the party? Had they only known each other for two freaking days?

She got hit with a spell, and he was right there with a Cura, before "cowboy" had even stopped blinking from the blast. She looked at him, _Thank you_. He looked back, _You're safe with me_.

Ultamecia had seen. She told me not to think of them anymore. The girl, she'd looked sideways at me, _or_ the boy. I didn't need them, not anymore. I tried to believe her. I wanted to, because if I needed him, then what was I going to do? I didn't need him, because if I really needed him, I would have him already.

We fought again and again, and every time, I saw it. And it made me so angry I didn't know what to do with myself. So I hurt him. And I hurt her. And I hurt anyone else who happened to be near, because he was looking at me with rage, and he was looking at her with . . .care? Affection? The spark for me had erupted into full-blown flames, and the drop of concern for her kept getting deeper and deeper. And I was getting shut away. Soon, I'd be nothing. Just a deep memory, buried somewhere, probably eventually erased by the GFs. And I couldn't stand it.

So when they walked away that last time on the Lunatic Pandora, left me lying there, bleeding, broken, hardly breathing, I looked for him one more time. Please, please let there be something in those eyes for me. Something, anything. He must have felt the eyes on his back, because he sent her on ahead, with the Chicken-Wuss, and waited until they left the room to face me. His eyes weren't angry, they weren't concerned, and thank Hyne they weren't blank. They were wet. And, for the first time, I saw him see _me_. Bother to see me as a person and ask me questions. _Why? Why do you always do this to me? Why do we do this?_

I looked back, _I don't know. Why do you? Why do we?_

I didn't get off the floor, and he didn't offer to help. He didn't move an inch. It was quiet. Neither of us knew how to say anything. It was too loud with all the whys hanging in the air. His arm twitched out once, like he was reaching to me, but he changed his mind. He turned away and walked out the door toward his friends. And I saw something, in the muscles working under the leather jacket, in the painfully straight shoulders, in that horribly erect head, that I'd never seen before. He always kept it all together. But it was holding by a thread.

And that's why.


End file.
